First Weeks of Summer Vacation in In the Meadow

Right after summer vacation started, we had a visit from my dad. We had a good time. We went to Costco and he stocked us up on paper goods, which was nice of him. My dad retired a couple of years ago. He had worked on the computer system at the same place since the early 1980s. I remember when I was young he actually had to go into his office building to work on the computers. There was no such thing as working remotely then. During the last part of his career he worked from home. He has taken a few trips to Europe since he retired.

Aaron has been attending a day camp. Kayla and Timmy have been working at the camp as Assistant Counselors. Kayla has been working with the 8-9 year olds, and Timmy has been working with the 10-11 year olds. The counselors have given them a lot of advice on how to deal with the kids. It is mostly about making it fun. They took classes in first aid and water safety. There are a lot of activities at the camp, and they take a lot of day trips. This week they are going inner tubing and to a children’s museum. Aaron has been having a good time. This part of the camp is geared for teenagers. They are going roller blading today.

On the Fourth of July we went to a barbecue that was hosted by some friends of ours. This barbecue turned out to be much more than I expected. The food was very elaborate and included seafood and several kinds of salads. There were some people there that I had not seen in a while, so it was nice. On the night of the Fourth a lot of people shot off fireworks in our neighborhood. It always scares me because they are so dangerous. Everyone seems to have gotten through it okay. We watched a Capitol Fourth on PBS.

There was rain on Saturday and the fireworks were postponed until Sunday. It was a great show. It was starting to rain and I think it was cut a little short, but not by much. It lasted about twenty minutes.

Over the past week we have gone swimming in the evenings. Last night we went to a church carnival. We had dinner there. I went on the spinning centrifuge ride. I was very dizzy after I got off. I had to walk around a while to regain balance, ha ha.